Library Rock's Backpages

The Stooges: Raw Power

Ben Edmonds, Phonograph Record, March 1973

ONE OF MY EARLIEST and most special memories is of sitting in front of a big television on a very early weekend morning watching a supposedly harmless Betty Boop cartoon. It was one of those wonderful pre-World War II productions – lots of detail and meticulous shading, as was the custom in the days before assembly-line simplicity took over and people were led to believe that color is compensation for craftsmanship – and it featured our gal Betty (that feisty little bubble with monstrous eyes and a head roughly three times the size of the rest of her body) in the clutches of a typically surrealist situation. She was seated at a table in a nightclub straight out of the Thirties, trying desperately to maintain her composure as spectral figures fluttered transparently in the air performing curious acts of mime and choreography.

Total word count of piece: 2188

Subscribe

Becoming a member is easy. Membership gives you access to all the thousands of articles in the library.

Click here to go to Subscribe page.

Click here for academic and other group subscriptions.